The Coming Storm
by A.Rose.Love
Summary: A series of drabbles containing love, lust, sadness, calculus, chemistry, and probably anything you could imagine.
1. Pebbles

This is going to be mildly pathetic, I haven't written in a very long time, so pardon the terrible-ness of the coming storm. This is going to be a new 'story' containing drabbles, sad attempts at scene making, and I'll hopefully be updating fairly regularly.

I don't own Naruto.

1\. Soul Mates

He wasn't sure what he was doing there, not really anyways. He had this thought floating through his head for what seemed like hours. Just show up at her dormitory building, pebbles in hand, and toss them at her window. He didn't know what he was expecting, he didn't know how she would respond, but he felt it. In his guts, in his heart, in his bones all the way down to his marrow. This, he was supposed to be doing this.

His hand made a graceful arc through the air as he stared up with hopeful black eyes.

The stone bounced timidly off of her white window pane. After seconds of waiting, he quickly flung another. The night wind blew crisply across his cheeks, breath held fast in his lungs, and moments passed before he was rewarded with the creaking sound of her window.

"Sasuke?" Sakura leaned over her pane and stared down at him. Her pink hair was tied into a bun on the top of her head, black glasses rested on the brim of her nose, and if she weren't so high above him, he figured he'd be able to see the little silver nose ring hanging on her nostril.

"Sakura," his mouth broke into a smile and his eyebrows furrowed together. "Sakura," he repeated again, her name honey against his tongue. "Come see me?"

He watched as she rubbed her eyes. "Are you drunk? It's past midnight."

The words stung him, but he shook his head and his grin grew. "Not at all." He let the last of the stones fall from his hands into the grass at his feet. "Sakura, I miss you."

He thought she swallowed, but he wasn't quite sure. She was cast in shadows from the light in her dorm. "I miss you too Sasuke."

"Then come down here," He said easily. He missed her warmth, her breath, and her smiles. He wanted her close, tucked back against his side, where she belonged. With him. Always, only, with him.

"Sasuke I can't, I have a calculus final tomorrow and this stuff is horrendous, you know I've been studying for finals all week, that's why we haven't seen each other."

A short whine escaped his lips. "Please Sakura? Please come down to me."

"You know you should really be studying too." It was curt but her hand lifted to her mouth, she was chewing on the tips of her fingers; she was always doing that when she couldn't make a decision. He was about to open his mouth again, beg to see her closer than two stories away; when she finally nodded. "Okay, but I can't be out late. Sasuke you have to promise to have me back here before three."

There it was, the palpitations of his heart returned and his palms started to sweat. "I promise Sakura, just please come see me."


	2. Rumors and Pixies

Hey, thank you to everyone who read, reviewed, favorited, and followed, I really appreciate it! I'm hoping to update this every few days or at least once a week. I'm going off a list of prompts I found online, so it's not going to be a consistent story line. And if you have any prompts for me feel free to leave them in a review and I'll see what I can do (: Thanks again.

I don't own Naruto

2\. Child-hood best friend

"Sasuke, hold this," Sakura shoved an ice cream cone into his hand before reaching up and braiding the ends of her pink hair. She gave a final chew on her bubblegum, cracking it between her molars, and spitting it into a garbage can three steps away. "Sasuke, what do you think about Sai?"

The male snorted and patiently held the female's melting ice cream as she pushed her hair around again. He never understood why she kept it so long, it only got in the way during practice and she could never figure out what she wanted to do with it. It hadn't been thirty seconds since she braided the locks and already she was pulling it apart.

"What about Sai?"

Sakura huffed, blowing her bangs from her eyes while reaching out for her cold snack again. Her tongue darted out and licked the strawberry cone. Sasuke swallowed.

"Well, I don't know. Karin told Tenten, who told Hinata, who told Naruto, who told Ino, who finally told _me_ that Sai has a crush on me or something like that." The female shrugged, shoulders dotted with summer freckles. "I didn't know if you knew him any better than our stupid friends. They claim he's going to ask me to prom or some shit like that, and I wanted your opinion before anything happened."

Their tennis shoes smacked off the searing pavement as they walked away from the ice cream stand, and the girl kicked at a crushed soda can lying pathetically by the highway. Sasuke shrugged. "No, I don't know Sai that well. We were in chemistry together last year, but he was a total dick bag about grades so we never really talked."

"Here," Sakura pushed her cone back into Sasuke's hand. "God damn my stupid hair, it never cooperates in the summer. This humidity just has it messed up." She growled as she fought with a hair tie and the now frizzing strands to put it into some kind of order.

"Jesus, why don't you just cut it off Sakura?" One of Sasuke's black brows rose. "It'd be easier to deal with and then people could see your face better."

Her step faltered and her mouth tilted to the side. "What's that supposed to mean?"

If she didn't witness it herself, Sakura never would have believed it, but Sasuke's face flushed fuchsia. "I-it doesn't mean anything. I just figured you'd be more comfortable."

"No, no, that's not the part I'm asking you about. What about my face? You said about seeing my face better?"

The male's jaw ground together and he almost threw her ice cream on the ground. Almost. "Yea, then you wouldn't look like a sheep dog anymore; it's all thick and stuff around your face." He rolled his eyes. "Then maybe it wouldn't take five people to tell you someone has a crush on you, he'd probably just ask you himself."

"Yea, I'm sure." Hair finally pulled into a lopsided bun, Sakura held her hand back out but Sasuke kept a hold of her ice cream. "Hey, gimme it!"

"No," he held it up a few inches above his head, out of the girl's reach. "I think I'll keep it."

"Give it back or I'll punch you in the nuts."

"Go ahead, it's not going to help you with your hair problem." He smirked at her and brought the snack down and licked it, then held it back in the air. He hated strawberry, but he loved harassing Sakura.

"Gah! What's wrong with you? Why are you so worried about my stupid hair?"

"Because it's stupid, let me fix it."

Her green eyes flashed and she crossed her arms. "You're such a dick head." He shrugged half-heartedly, and ate more of her ice cream. "You know I could just walk back and get myself another one."

Sasuke nodded. "You could, but you won't. You've been shown a challenge, and now you're going to fight with me about it. But we both know I'm going to win, so you should really just agree now, let me fix your dumb hair, and you'll avoid all sorts of issues."

"Fine, whatever, ya big meanie." He grinned at her and held out her ice cream. "Come with me."

The walk across town to his house passed with rambles of Meishi Smile songs, the discussion of ice cream flavors, and the kicking back and forth of a stick they found along the way. The heat was suffocating, lying heavy against their skin and in their teenage lungs, so the cool air conditioned atmosphere of Sasuke's home was welcome.

Sakura licked the edges of her fingers of the last bit of strawberry flavor before wiping her palms against the rough fabric of her denim shorts. "Okay Mr. Uchiha, what now?" Her pale pink brows rose and he motioned her towards the bathroom.

He sat her on the edge of the bathtub, legs resting on the fluffy blue rug his mother insisted on keeping in there. Pulling a pair of scissors from the cupboard he grinned almost manically. "Okay, close your eyes."

She huffed, glared, and then twisted her fingers together in anxiety and obeyed, closing her grass green eyes.

Sasuke pulled her pink locks from its bun and the pieces fell in a tangled mess on her freckled shoulders. He moved carefully, trying to unknot the pieces, but gave up before he really got anywhere. With a short "Ready?" He opened the scissors with a metallic clang and cut a huge chunk off the side.

Petal pink pieces fell to the bathtub floor and Sakura immediately regretted _not _punching Sasuke in the balls when she had the chance. They were best friends but she was seriously questioning his sanity at that moment.

He chopped away at the pink mass that was her hair, and after minutes passed, the girl's head felt lighter, more naked, and cooler. She could hear him grunting quietly to himself, inspecting his work as he went along, the _clip clip clip _of the scissors and the almost nonexistent sound of hair landing on the floor.

There was a final clip and the clunk of the scissors being dropped onto the counter. "Open your eyes Sakura," Sasuke was holding a mirror out for her to look into and she gasped at her reflection.

The pink pieces were uneven and choppy, but not in an unskilled way. Her hair resembled his, longer bits in the front, framing her face instead of hiding it. And the back was short enough it spiked out on it's own. It reminded her of pixies and summer nights around a campfire.

She smiled like the sun, and jumped up to hug him. "It's fantastic Sasuke!" she was grinning and bouncing, even in his arms. "I love it, I absolutely love it."

"I knew you would," he scratched his nose and brushed the long pieces of her hair from his clothes. "Now, do you think he's going to ask you out to prom now?"

The girl's brows knit together and she stopped looking at her new hair cut to stare at Sasuke. "Who Sai?"

The male shrugged and leaned down to gather up the mess lying in the bottom of his tub. "Whoever all those people said had a crush on you. Do you think he'll grow a pair and do it instead of starting rumors to see what his prospects are?"

Sakura bit at her mouth and reached up to fidget with hair strands that were no longer there. She pulled on her ear instead, then rubbed her cheek. She was looking at the blue fibers in the rug, pushing them around with her toes, and then sighed. "No, I don't think he's going to ask me out."

"Your hair is super cool now, he'll probably like seeing your face."

"I guess I said that wrong, I hope he won't ask me out."

Sasuke threw the hair into the trash can in the corner and then turned to lean against the sink. His arms crossed in front of his chest and he watched her with even black eyes. "Why wouldn't you want that?"

She swatted at his arm and rolled her eyes. "Jesus, for being my best friend you don't pick up on my cues very well."

The male grinned, and the way his lips tilted to the side made Sakura's heart jump into her throat. "Maybe I just want to see that my prospects are good before I go making any big pronouncements to you. You know, because starting that rumor wasn't a good enough sign."

Sakura's delicate jaw dropped. "You started it?"

He put his hands in the air. "Guilty."

The girl's cheeks turned pink and her mouth warped and pursed. "Well, why in the world would you do that? I've been worrying about it all day today, and here it was only a farce."

"To make sure that when I do this," his hands flashed to her hips and pulled her against his chest before his mouth smashed against hers and all she could register was Sasuke. Sasuke, Sasuke, Sasuke. That's all her mind could say.

His lips felt like velvet and his hands like an anchor against her hips. She was grounded and floating all at the same time. Her heart was dancing and palpitating, and she hoped if she passed out he wouldn't let her drop ungracefully to the floor.

"That when I do that, it's a reciprocated feeling." He mumbled quietly, breath fanning across her skin. He waited, centimeters were the only distance between them, to see what she would do. And to his relief, she pushed closer and met his mouth again.


	3. Suburban Houses

Thank you to everyone again! I appreciate everything so much!

I don't own Naruto

3\. Teacher/student

The classroom was pretty much empty at this time of day, only a handful of students were sitting at their desks, staring blankly at the linoleum floors and the messy chalk board. Mr. Uchiha was shuffling through newly graded papers. If he was honest, he really did like presiding over detention, it was an extra two hours at the end of the day dedicated to getting work done. The kids rarely bothered him, they played on their phones or vaguely tried to work on whatever homework they had that day.

The timer on the edge of his desk chirped and the imprisoned kids jumped from their desks and walked to the door.

"Have a good night Naruto," Mr. Uchiha said evenly to an aggressive blond boy who walked by. The kid didn't give a response, but promptly left. The teacher sighed and leaned over to grab his briefcase from the floor.

Teaching, he generally liked teaching; except sometimes, when he didn't.

"Mr. Uchiha," a girl with poorly dyed pink hair was standing in front of his desk; the other students had all left by this point. "I had a question I wanted to ask you."

The twenty-two year old man set his briefcase down on top of the already cluttered desk. "Yes Sakura? What is it?"

She fiddled with the hem of her v-neck sweater and bit at her mouth. "I, uh, I wanted to ask you something."

Sasuke withheld a sigh, opened the briefcase, and started arranging papers and thin practice books inside. "Right, go ahead and shoot Ms. Haruno."

The nineteen year old ground her jaw and resituated her backpack strap on her shoulder. "I wanted to ask you if you think I'm going to graduate this year." Her green eyes were wide and honest, and a pang of guilt stabbed into Sasuke's stomach.

The man looked evenly at her. It was barely two months into the school year, and already this was her fifth time visiting him in detention. He stopped arranging his papers and folded his arms.

"Honestly, Sakura," he pushed a hand through his hair. "I don't know. You have to stop doing this." Her gaze fell to the floor. "You have to stop getting into trouble; you have to apply yourself to your schooling. You're better than this, I know you are."

The young woman shrugged and she reached out and picked up an apple shaped clock sitting on his desk top.

"You were doing so well in my class last year; I don't know what happened to you. In the middle of spring semester you just seemed to give up and fail out of all your classes. I know you're smart enough to pass, it just seems like you don't want to."

"I don't." she said evenly, rolling the red object around in her hands.

"Why?"

The girl set the apple clock back onto his desk and looked at his face. "I'm scared I'm not going to make it in the real world. High school is safe, I can stay here for a few more years and people are just going to assume I'm stupid."

"Why would you want them to think that way about you? To think you're stupid?"

"Because it's better than trying and failing. Being stupid is normal; half the people you walk by in the street are completely idiotic. Someone seeing me and assuming I'm dumb is better than someone thinking I'm going to do all these great things and then failing miserably at them."

"Sakura, that's only setting yourself up for failure. If you don't try you aren't going to do anything great. I thought you wanted to be a doctor after this?"

She nodded, "I do."

"Then why are you screwing off here?" it didn't come out exactly as a yell, but his jaw was grinding together and his knuckles were turning white.

She shrugged again, brows twisted together in thought. "I don't know."

The man sighed and shoved more papers into his case. "If you don't know then what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to help you if you won't let anyone help you succeed? Sakura you were going to be the valedictorian of you class last year, and you just threw it away. Get your shit together and then come talk to me."

"Sasuke-"

His eyes darted to hers and his mouth was in an even, flat line. "Mr. Uchiha. Just because your brother and I are friends doesn't mean you can call me Sasuke. It's Mr. Uchiha here."

Her arms crossed uncertainly over her chest, the v of her v-neck stretched and the edge of her purple bra peeked through. "Sorry, sir, I keep forgetting that. I'll –uh- leave you alone then. Thank you, for talking with me."

Her head bowed down and she tore from the room.

Sasuke stood for a few heartbeats, propped up on the palms of his hands against his desktop, staring blankly at the mess of papers he needed to organize. The guilty knife sticking in his stomach cut deeper and pierced through his liver. His black eyes closed, and he wished she wasn't what he saw on the back of his eyelids.

"_Sakura," _she had been naked beside him, before he was a teacher, before he finished college, before they broke up. _"Sakura I'm going to marry you. I'm going to buy you a house in the suburbs, and I'm going to come home every night to you. Only you."_

She had smiled at him, barely seventeen at the time, with white teeth and a glowing face, and kissed him when his mouth was back within her reach.

Sasuke's hands curled into fists and he punched the top of his desk.

He had allowed her to slip away, and she wasn't his to protect any more.


	4. Fifty Shades

Thank you again for all the reviews, follows, and favorites! I hope you're all enjoying these stories Thanks again!

I don't own Naruto

4 Teacher/single parent

**September**

"Oh my goodness," a thirty something woman sighed the words, walking into her fifth grade classroom holding a damaged high heel. She was staring down at her bare foot with a frown marring her pretty face. "Seriously, of all the days-"

The skin on her forearms broke into gooseflesh when a grunt emitted from the middle of her classroom. Sea-foam green eyes darted up from the disaster that was her morning to see absolute perfection waiting for her.

He was tall, well taller than her, by maybe four inches. His black hair was combed and parted immaculately; a suit framed his broad shoulders, a red tie ran like blood from his throat –which made her note the Adam's apple that bobbed momentarily as he swallowed.

"Mrs. Haruno?"

His voice was even, silky, clean just like his appearance. "Miss, actually, I'm not a Misses." She half-laughed, a chuckle thrown awkwardly from her lungs. He stared at her with eyes dark as night and nodded. She stared, and after what felt like an eternity he cleared his throat.

"My son brought a letter home last week, saying I was supposed to come in for parent teacher conferences?" The man pulled a perfectly folded manila paper from inside his blazer, and Ms. Haruno immediately remembered her surroundings and stood a little straighter. "I might have gotten the day wrong, he actually gave it to my ex-wife instead of me, but she called and, well…" his voice trailed off for a few heartbeats and the hand holding the paper fell uselessly to his side. "I'm sure you've heard all of the stories, Mrs. Haruno."

"Miss." The teacher said half-heartedly and motioned towards her desk. "No, you have the correct day, just give me a moment, please, I've had the worst morning." She tucked a stray piece of strawberry blonde hair behind her ear and tried to walk to her desk with as much dignity as she could muster. _'What a pathetic scene,' _she thought miserably. _'He probably wonders how I can even teach children.'_

**October**

"Well, hello there." A soft voice said, barely making it over the sound of the vibrating bass, and Sakura jumped, the fruit punch in her cup sloshed over the sides landing with a plink onto the hard wooden floor under her silver heels. "Oh," Sasuke Uchiha's black eyes widened when the female looked at him through the gym's dimness. "I'm sorry; I didn't mean to scare you."

"N-no you're okay," Ms. Haruno grabbed a tissue from the pocket in her grey and black dress and kneeled down carefully, sopping up the red liquid. "I just wasn't expecting anyone to just… appear beside me." She grinned anxiously. She moved to stand, wobbling uneasily on her heels, and Sasuke's hand darted out and steadied her elbow, butterflies exploded in her tummy. His skin was warm and soft.

The male cleared his throat and nodded towards one of the doorways to the gymnasium. "Do you want to go to the cafeteria?" his hand lingered on her elbow for a second, before it slipped away to adjust his forest green tie. "I can get you more punch and we'll be able to talk easier." He had to raise his voice over the music blasting through the space.

Ms. Haruno felt herself blush, _'Talk easier?' _she thought timidly, and then nodded. He let her walk in front of him, leading the way towards the cafeteria. She sat down at a table, the plastic seats cool against her legs. Mr. Uchiha walked over to the refreshments table, pulling at the sleeves of his grey pinstripe suit, and grabbed them both a cup of fruit punch.

"Here," He gave her a small smile as he handed her the beverage and settled into the vacant space beside her. "So, Ms. Haruno," the man folded his hands around his cup looking up at the large clock hanging on the cinder block wall. "What are you doing here? I didn't see your name on the list when I signed up to chaperone this dance thing."

"Oh," the woman rolled her radiation green eyes away from the bob of his Adam's apple, and tucked strawberry hair behind her ear. "Another teacher is a friend of mine and she called off sick today, so I was volunteered to take her place." She shrugged slender shoulders and took a drink of her new punch.

"It might be bold to say so," the man glanced down at his hands. "But I'm glad she did."

Sakura's delicate jaw dropped and the butterflies hatched again. She felt exposed in the bright fluorescent lights of the cafeteria, it was easier to hide in the gymnasium.

"Too soon, I'm sorry. I-I'm not-"

"No, Mr. Uchiha, you're fine." She swallowed and played with the hem of her dress. It took a few heartbeats, but eventually the man looked over at her and smiled, and she couldn't help but smile back.

**November**

"So how is your ordeal with Mr. Uchiha going?" Ino Yamanaka was standing on her tip toes pulling down the streamers that decorated the parking lot for the September bake sale.

"My ordeal?"

"Yes, you dummy, your ordeal. I can see what's going on here, I'm not blind Sakura." The blonde teacher mashed the thin paper into a messy ball. "I see the way he looks at your any time he's around, and the way you blush and stutter, and become much _less_ bossy."

"Well that's just rude, thank you very much." Sakura's mouth pursed and her brows furrowed into her forehead. "And, by the way, I know you weren't actually sick for the dance, you had a date planned for that night. And, we could've saved that roll of streamers if you didn't mash it up like that. Who's the dummy now?"

Ino rolled cerulean eyes, threw the paper ball at her friend, and sighed. "Yea yea money saving, teaching kids, dating their parents, whatever." She flashed her porcelain white teeth in a smile. "So tell me Ms. Haruno, how is Mr. _Uchiha?_"

Sakura bit the inside of her mouth and shrugged. "Okay I guess." Her nose wrinkled and she scratched the tip before reaching out and gathering the left over plates from the tables they had set up. "He's… he's really quite most of the time, he usually asks about school and the kids."

"Have you guys gone on a date yet?"

The pink haired woman shook her head and felt her cheeks flush, the dishes clinking in her hands. "No, we haven't. We ran into each other at the dance last month, and then again at the kids' play last week. I was down with the band, you know I play the clarinet for them, and he sat in the second row in. I think he smiled at me during the show. At the intermission he came down and said he was surprised I play an instrument."

Cars started to pull into the parking lot, basketball practice had just finished for the evening and kids were wondering around inside the glass entrance of the school.

"It is sort of surprising since your uncoordinated and all." Ino flicked platinum hair over her shoulder; it whisked through the air and then came to rest straight down her back. "But if he asked –Speak of the devil." Ms. Yamanaka muttered.

A car door slammed shut and the two women looked up to see Sasuke striding towards them. His shoulders were broad even in the hoodie he was wearing and Sakura felt butterflies again.

"Ms. Haruno," he smiled at her and turned his attention to Ino. "And..?"

"Ms. Ino Yamanaka," she grinned at him and stuck out a milk white hand which he took it. "But you can just call me Ino if you'd like."

He grinned at her and Sakura noticed small dimples in the middle of his cheeks. "It's nice to meet you Ms. Yamanaka." He dropped her hand and pushed onyx bangs out of his face. "Ms. Haruno," he looked back at the pink haired teacher and nodded towards the glass entrance to the school. "Would you talk with me for a moment, over there?"

She nodded silently and watched as he walked away towards a more secluded area of the sidewalk. Sakura tried not to notice the minute differences between his jeans and hoodie over his normal suits, but Ino caught her looking and Sakura flushed crimson.

"_You can call me Ino if you'd like._" Sakura muttered under her breath, taking a split second to glare at her friend before following the man across the pavement.

"You said there wasn't an ordeal going on here." The blonde said it with a smile and Sakura's eyes rolled as she walked away.

"What did you want to talk about Mr. Uchiha?" The woman said evenly as she stepped beside him. She just remembered she was holding a few plates and she wished she had set them down before she came over.

"I just wanted to ask you something." He scratched the back of his neck and looked down on the ground. "I know it's sort of unconventional, but I was wondering if you'd come to dinner with me sometime."

Sakura felt her jaw drop. "Uh, I-"

"I know it's kind of random, and unconventional like I said. But, I was hoping you'd at least think about it. Here," He reached into his hoodie pocket and pulled out a small rectangle of white paper and tried to hand it to her. Her hands were full of dishes, and after chuckling to himself he delicately pulled some of the plates into his own grip and replaced them with the paper.

"I won't make you answer now; I have to take Hiro to his mother's house. But if you'd ever like to get together, just call me." He smiled, the small dimples showing again, and then walked her back towards the table and set down the dishes. "It was nice to meet you Ms. Yamanaka." Ino nodded at him and both of the females watched as he walked away.

The pink haired teacher stood there dumbfounded for a few seconds, heart throbbing against her ribcage, and then looked at Ino. The blonde grinned at her, a pale brow sticking high on her forehead. "So I'm guessing that was the big question, eh?"

Sakura nodded, quietly staring down at the paper he had given her. It was a crisp business card containing his name, two phone numbers, and a bank that was in town. One of the numbers was printed in the clean black ink, identical to the rest of the card, but the other number was written in blue pen. The numbers were stocky and block-like, even thick strokes, and the woman had to swallow before tucking the card into her back pocket and finishing the clean-up.

**December**

Sakura Haruno was tracing the edges of her wine glass as she found herself in a restaurant named Channel Five, which had nothing to do with the perfume or the actual brand. She thought she should be feeling nervous and jittery, Sasuke Uchiha seemed to cause that sort of reaction, but the bottle of wine they had been sharing was close to empty, and if she were honest, she just felt warm all over.

The man in front of her was rambling in soft tones about his work, the bank he consulted for, and the people he worked with. He mentioned a tan blond man, who was really very nice, and an elder woman who liked sake too much for her own good. Sasuke wasn't slurring, or tripping over any words, but Sakura could tell his brain was a little fuzzy and she smiled.

"-I don't mind consultant work, it's really rather boring and kind of tedious, but I like it. It's dependable and you can almost guess what every day will bring." Sasuke picked up his own wine glass and took a sip. Swallowing, he set the object down and folded his hands on the table top. "Ms. Haruno, may I call you Sakura?"

She nodded.

"Sakura, can I come clean about something? I'm tired of the _'how's the weather?'_ conversations."

Sakura nodded again.

"When I was in my freshman college class, I was dating my now ex-wife, Hinata. I thought she was interesting, honestly I was quite young, and she ended up getting pregnant. I married her because I felt it was the right thing to do. Not a lot of people do that anymore, but I didn't want her to have to go it alone. I started working at Konoha Commercial as soon as I finished college. My colleague Naruto Uzumaki started around the same time, and we became very close friends."

A waiter dressed in black walked over to their table and deposited the check. Sasuke picked the object up and pulled out his wallet. After setting the money out on the table, the man bit the inside of his mouth, reached up to loosen his tie, and then let his hands fold back together in his lap.

"I found out last year, that my wife was having an affair with my colleague, that's why we got a divorce. And I've tried really hard to be angry about it. To be righteously mad that they betrayed me like this. But it seems like it's the best thing that's happened to me. It made me realize I've never loved Hinata like a husband is supposed to. Not that I don't love her in a way. But Naruto looks at her like she's the sun rising over the horizon. She said she gets butterflies in her stomach and she can't seem to stop smiling when he's around."

"Mr. Uchiha, I'm so sorry."

The man shook his head. "Sasuke, please just call me Sasuke."

Sakura tucked a pink ringlet behind her ear and sipped at her red wine. "Sasuke, I'm sorry."

He sat silent for a second, seemingly to think everything over, and then he smiled. Dimples and white teeth on full display. "Don't be sorry. I'm sorry for talking about my broken marriage. That's probably a bad sign for a first date, wouldn't you say?"

The teacher shook her head and glanced down at the table. "Not at all, it's probably a good thing to get out in the open."

The waiter stepped back over and after a quiet thank you, he grabbed the check and the money then walked away.

"Come on," Sasuke stood up and held out a hand for her to take. She was wearing her silver heels again and her ankles were wobbling. "I'll drive you home." They walked together towards his car, her hand felt small and cool in his, and finally the woman felt mildly anxious.

Once they were tucked in the car, engine running, seatbelts on, she looked at him from the corner of her green eyes and said "You're not going to _Fifty Shades_ me or anything, are you?"

It was the first time since she met him that she saw a look of shock color his face. His eyes bulged and his mouth dropped. Then his features transformed and he smirked at her, a brow high on his forehead. "What does that even mean Ms. Haruno?"

She felt herself turn red and then said in a huff: "Like, you're not some sexual deviant are you? Like, you aren't going to take me back to your house and show me some messed up sex room."

He didn't answer for a handful of minutes, cheeks dimpling as he pulled out of Channel Five's parking lot onto the highway. Cars passed them in a frenzy but Sasuke just let the vehicle cruise evenly through traffic. "It depends on your definition of deviant, but," he added as the woman started to squirm in her seat, imagining the awkward apparatuses and how clumsy she was as a human being. "No, I do not have a play room." A laugh escaped his throat and he looked at her with dark eyes. "I have a child, Sakura, I don't have time for such stupid endeavors."

Sakura sat there for a minute, twisting her fingers together, digesting the information before nodding. "So no _Fifty Shades_?" She asked quietly.

Sasuke laughed again. "No, none of that Sakura." His teeth were showing and the corners of his eyes crinkled. "Nothing that you don't want."

The woman let out a breath, glanced at him, and then grinned herself. "Thank you." They fell into silence, and when they eventually made it to Sakura's house, she kissed him.


	5. One Nighter

Thank you guys for everything! (:

I don't own Naruto

5 One Night Stand

This couldn't be happening. Literally, honestly, this was impossible.

Sakura stared with emerald green eyes at the pregnancy stick in her hands.

It had a pink plus on the screen.

It couldn't be happening, it _wasn't_ happening.

"Jesus Christ," She muttered, waving the object through the air, hoping the little pink plus would turn into a blue minus sign. But after frantically waving the thing for a number of minutes, she checked it again, and the damn pink thing was still there.

She was pregnant.

Xxx

"Sasuke," she was running down the sidewalk following her sort of, not really, boyfriend as he walked to work. "Sasuke!" She yelled his name but he wouldn't slow down. He had longer legs than her and even running she felt like she'd barely reach him in time. "Sasuke please."

Someone bumped into him and threw him off kilter, and without making as many gains as before, Sakura reached him, out of breath.

"Sasuke I really need to talk to you."

He glared at her, motioning towards the buildings ahead of them. "I told you, I'm late for work, I can't talk. Besides, why would I?"

He pivoted to start away from her again but a small hand darted out and grabbed onto the front of his uniform. "Because this is important and could affect us for the rest of our lives."

His brows furrowed into a frown and he rolled his eyes. "Yea, yea Sakura you told me a million times. You love me, big freaking deal, I have to go." He moved again but she held on tighter to the fabric in her small hands.

"No you dimwit. That's not what I'm trying to tell you." She pulled the pregnancy stick out of her purse and pushed it into his hands. "Just look at this."

"I don't have time."

"You had time for me a few weeks ago, remember when you-"

The male threw his hands into the air and his eyes grew wide, face twisted with disgust. "I thought we agreed we wouldn't ever talk about that again? You promised Sakura, you promised me you'd never mention it." People pushed around them and cars beeped at each other on the road to their right.

"I _know _what I promised you, but something has come up and it's imperative we have a discussion." She nodded towards his hands. "Just look."

Finally, after what seemed like hours, he listened to her and looked down at his hands. His black eyes squinted for a moment, deciphering what the object was, and then he blanched. Whatever little color his skin contained completely drained, he was whiter than a ghost and the way his lips fell into a straight line made it seem like he definitely had.

"This is wrong, right? Like you took more than one of these?"

The girl sighed. "It's correct, Sasuke, and yes I took more than one."

He stared at her blankly, still whiter than milk. "You said it was a one-time thing."

"Sasuke I know, but listen-"

"Sakura you promised. You said you couldn't go off to college without knowing if we should've gotten together in high school. You said you wanted to see what would have happened, so we tried it out, and we now know that it wasn't supposed to have happened."

"I know-"

"You know we're barely even friends anymore because of you, because you wanted that."

"Sasuke I'm sorry." She let go of his uniform and he took a step away from her, the stick still in his hands. "I didn't mean for this to have happened, how was I supposed to know that the one time we have sex we'd get pregnant."

"I didn't even _want _to have sex with you Sakura," the male's black eyes were wet and his nose started to turn red. "I told you how I felt years ago and you still had to push it."

"Sasuke I wanted to know if you were actually gay or not, I couldn't just fly away to college without ever _knowing._"

"You already knew!" He shouted it, hands curling into fists. "I told you how many times?"

Sakura looked down at her sneakers and swallowed. "I'm sorry, you just never experienced it and I thought I could help you."

"Help me?" He yelled at her again. "Now I have to deal with this, and it's nothing I've ever wanted. I never wanted this Sakura, I never wanted this with you." Tears were leaking over his cheeks now, the pigment returned to his skin, but it was splotchy. He wondered how he would tell Naruto about this, how could he explain this without coming off as a total asshole. "Sakura what am I supposed to do?"

The girl shook her head, "I don't know."

"How am I supposed to explain this to Naruto, we already planned to share a dorm for the fall semester, we just had our first kiss." Sasuke rubbed his eyes with the back of his wrist, work was pushed entirely from his mind and he felt a panic attack coming on.

"Sasuke," The girl took a step closer to him, holding out her arms for him to hide in. But he pushed her away and threw the stick back at her.

"No!" he wiped his hands on his jeans, and then pushed his hand through his hair. "No, Sakura you stay away from me." The girl tried to open her mouth but the boy shook his head and walked away.


	6. Spooky

Thank you everyone for the reviews and everything. I appreciate all of you. Please let me know what you think of these, I know they're not that great but I would like to know if I can improve or what you'd like to see more of.

This chapter is a dedication to one of my favorite shows the X Files -which I'm hoping they'll bring back this year :D-

I don't own Naruto, nor do I own the X Files.

6 Coffee Shop Meeting

Sasuke Uchiha pushed thick wooden doors open, his senses immediately pounded with the scent of cocoa beans, sugar, and the bitter lacing of coffee. He took a deep breath, black eyes tracing through the establishment, noting the old man sitting in the far corner and the tired looking barista waiting impatiently behind the counter.

He watched her for a moment before turning and glancing at their cherry wood accent wall, drenched in shelves containing cream colored accessories and coffee house paraphernalia. Mugs, travel cups, coffee flavored candies, and a sleepy raccoon mascot all sat happily bunched together on the shelves.

The thirty something man picked up the stuffed animal mascot, and after smiling to himself, he walked over to the counter and placed the animal there.

"Hello," he said to the college aged girl, she had her brown hair tied in two buns and Sasuke couldn't help but be reminded about pandas. She nodded at him and started punching buttons on her computer.

"Is the raccoon all?" her voice was monotone and Sasuke shook his head.

"No, a mocha and a double shot espresso please." The girl punched at the screen again and he dug into the pockets in his trench coat for his wallet. "Maybe add more caffeine to the espresso, I didn't sleep well last night." He said it with a smile but the female ignored him and held out a hand.

"Twenty-three thirty-six please."

He handed her two crumpled bills and picked the stuffed animal off of the counter and stuffing it into a different pocket. She gave back some dollars and a fist full of coins and then turned away to make his drinks.

Sasuke dropped the coins into a plastic tip jar, they made a satisfying thunk for so early in the morning, and the panda girl turned to glare at the noise before rolling brown eyes and continuing her task. Sasuke folded his hands into his pockets and glanced around the shop again. The man who was sitting in the corner had disappeared, though a laptop computer sat innocently at the table.

Sasuke was thinking about this, and where the man might have gone, and if he should be pursued, but the girl set two steaming cups on the counter before he made his decision.

"Thank you." Sasuke said with a smile, but the girl had already turned away to wipe off some equipment.

The male examined the tables again before turning and stepping to the back of the store, picking a table that sat directly beside the emergency exit and had an excellent view of the cherry wood entrance doors.

He set the cups down on the table and pulled over a third chair to throw his feet onto. He was settling into his seat, feet resting on the empty chair, when the entrance doors opened and his partner walked into the store.

She stepped in with barely a sway to her hips –not that he'd ever notice such a thing about her. Her strawberry blonde hair was parted evenly, pushed with an easy wave to one side. It took a few moments before Sasuke could see the spattering of freckles that covered the bridge of Sakura Haruno's nose and the planes of her cheeks. Her nose wrinkled with a smile as she closed in on the table.

"Good morning Uchiha," she set down a leather briefcase and removed her own trench coat from her shoulders, lying it over the back of the chair Sasuke's feet were resting on. Then she slid carefully into her own faux leather chair and pulled the second Styrofoam cup into slender hands.

"Punctual," the male grinned as a response and sipped his espresso. "I was hoping you would be –you always are, but I thought that after-"

"No," the woman shook her head and scratched momentarily at her forehead. "I told you, ghost stories have never kept me awake as a little girl." She took a drink of her mocha and smiled at him.

Sasuke glanced down at the linoleum table top and picked at the edges of his cup. "Ah, well I wasn't sure. You know, after investigating them over the past week and Kiba Inuzuka's body missing from the morgue, and that issue you had with a ghost in the car-"

"I've told you Uchiha, I like scientific fact. Just because I don't have an explanation right now doesn't mean I won't have one in the future. Besides," She tucked her reddish hair behind her ear. "It wasn't a ghost in the car."

The man shrugged and leaned back in his chair. "Ghost was your word that night, not mine Haruno, just remember that." She glowered at him for mere seconds before dropping it and swallowing more of her drink.

They were quiet, and Sasuke noticed the old man walk stiffly towards the entrance, throw a look their way, and then he was gone from the building.

"So how about you?" Sakura asked quietly. "Did you lose sleep over the whole Kiba Inuzuka ordeal?" She inspected him with scientific green eyes, noticing dark bags hanging deep under his eyes and the stubble tracing the edges of his jaw bone.

"Oh, Haruno," he pushed already messy black hair out of his face and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I'd tell you yes to satisfy you, but no. I have generalized insomnia, in case you haven't picked up on it yet." He drank some of his beverage and inhaled the sweet bitter scent of the shop. "Sometimes I sleep for days, and other times I don't sleep at all. Last night was not at all."

The female nodded, cheeks brushed pink, and to get over her minor embarrassment for asking such a question, she pulled her briefcase closer. "Anyhow," she said it in a low voice, "I've looked into the case you called me about last night, and I think I've found a few interesting things."

She kept talking, bow shaped mouth reciting medical terminology without hesitation or misstep. Radiation green eyes ran over the paperwork she gathered overnight, and Sasuke wondered how much the woman had actually slept. He could detect no bags under her radiant eyes, and her complexion was rather bright –even for the six a.m. meet up he requested. Suddenly he felt jealous of the secrets women could hide under a thin layer of foundation and blush.

His mind wondered as Sakura kept talking, if the ghost they experienced really did keep her awake. It would explain how she dredged up so much information on this new x-file in only a few spare hours.

Sasuke hadn't been able to close his eyes, let alone concentrate enough to research. The ghost had rattled him, yes, but he didn't get the bureau nickname _Spooky_ for nothing. No, if he were honest it wasn't thoughts of ghostly intruders or alien visitors that kept him awake in the wee hours of the night.

No, if he were honest –even to himself- he would admit it was his partner that left his mind restless. He couldn't understand why it was so hard for her believe, even with only the handful of new, unexplainable, paranormal experiences she had.

She refused to believe, and the mere thought kept him awake for hours, staring blankly at his ceiling, trying to figure her mind out.

"I'm sorry," he cut her off midsentence, shaking his head to focus at the topic at hand. "I'm not actually sure this will help us with the case."

A look of irritation crossed her features, but she nodded, shuffled her papers back into a neat bundle, and stared at him. "So what will help the case if not research?" she laid her hands out flat on the tabletop and watched him, mouth pursed and an eyebrow raised.

"This woman who contacted us, Yamanaka I believe her name is. She said her husband is missing, yes?"

Sakura nodded, jaw grinding minimally behind her cheeks. "Correct."

"Did your research tell you that there have been six other cases, exactly like this one, that have happened in her town over the past ten years?"

"No."

"Exactly, the FBI databases don't have that on file because the generally tend to ignore this work. They've just written the other six cases off as a missing person's case and never really investigated anything."

Sakura sighed. "Correct."

"So, I hope you have bags ready, Haruno, we leave tonight for the Village Hidden in the Leaves."

XXX

Sakura knocked gently on the wood framework of the door belonging to the Yamanaka residence. A crisp breeze rushed past, the woman's trench coat flipped a bit in the air. Sakura tucked a rouge strand of pink-ish hair behind her ear and didn't jump when the neighbor's dog started barking madly from its own yard.

"Someone doesn't sound too happy." Sasuke commented in a monotone voice, black eyes swinging across the porch to see the brown animal leaping at its chain link prison. "I feel like we might be lucky to be on this side." He whispered as the wooden door creaked open and a skinny blonde woman stood behind it.

"Hello?" her voice was soft and she hefted a baby higher on her hip bone.

"Hi, my name is Sakura Haruno, and this is Sasuke Uchiha," they each lifted a laminated badge for the woman to see. "We're FBI agents here to talk to an Ino Yaminaka?"

The woman nodded her head, pieces of platinum hair pulling free from a messy bun at the base of her neck. "That's me," she muttered, taking a backwards step into her home. "Come in, you must be here to talk about Sai."

The two FBI agents nodded and filed into the home, Sakura going first as Sasuke let a large hand rest on the small of her back before following her inside.

Ino set her small child down into a mesh play pen, placing a stuffed animal at its right and a bottle to its left.

Ms. Yamanaka's blue eyes were wide and red rimmed as she motioned them towards the kitchen. "I'm guessing you would like some coffee? It's a long flight way out here to California from Washington D.C."

"Yes, please," Sakura said, eyes glancing around the cluttered room. Dishes were stacked on the counter tops and cereal boxes were stuffed together in an open cupboard. Ino pushed the dishes to make space for her coffee pot.

"Oh, please sit down, it'll take a minute for everything to brew."

"So, Ms. Yamanaka," Sasuke started, taking a seat at the kitchen table. Sakura followed suit, her chair squeaking under her small weight. "Tell us what happened."

The woman's shoulder blades looked sharp even from under her green sundress. "Well, that's sort of the problem; I'm not entirely sure what happened." She leaned over to grab a canister of coffee grounds, Sakura noticed a yellow and purple bruise on her shoulder, and Ino scooped the powdery grains into the coffee machine.

"Sai works as a translator for the military, I guess he isn't really a translator, he decodes intercepted messages. He's normally around the area, on call of course, but he's generally home. Last week he got a call from one of his superiors, asking if he could take a paid flight out to the Village Hidden in the Sound."

A gust of wind blew in through the window, carrying sounds of a driving car and the neighbor's dog digging in the dirt along with the fresh scent of mown grass.

Ino ground her jaw and then rubbed at her temples, leaning against the countertop as the coffee maker started to gurgle. "Sai said it wouldn't be a problem, he could be on the next flight out, and he was. I asked him to tell me why they needed him in Oregon, couldn't he just decode whatever message they found right here at home and then just send it to them, or even tell them over the phone. Sai got really weird. He, uhm, he hit me for the first time in my life."

The young woman's face twisted and she slouched into a kitchen chair. "You have to understand that Sai isn't like that. When I told him I was pregnant he didn't even blink, he just pulled me close and said we would work something out. He proposed to me after Inojin was born." Her lips trembled and tears started leaking out of her eyes.

"Ms. Yamanaka, it's okay," Sakura put a reassuring hand on the thin woman's shoulder. "You-"

"Ino, please just call me Ino."

"Ino, if you need a moment, it's perfectly fine-"

"No," she straightened her back and wiped her face. "No, you need all the information you can get if there's any hopes of finding him."

"You said he made it onto the flight to Oregon, correct?"

The woman nodded. "Yes, he was on the flight to Oregon, but it never landed there." She folded her hands together to make them stop shaking as the coffee pot steamed and chortled in the background. "I called his superior, his name was Asuma, but he claims he never contacted Sai in the first place."

"Did Sai say anything before he left? You said he was acting weird but did he tell you anything or leave any clues to where he was going?"

The table jostled when the woman stood, her legs carried her into another room and the two agents could hear papers being shuffled and the baby huffed in its mesh enclosure. Ino returned a moment later, a bundle of papers held in her slender hands.

"He left a note in Inojin's bedroom, and these in the mailbox." She set the sheaf onto the table and then grabbed cups from the countertop. "He never explained what it was, but I just assume I wasn't supposed to ask anything, not after, well, you know."

Sakura and Sasuke pushed their chairs closer together and pulled the papers closer. There were a series of letters all containing weird combinations of words, phrases, and a handful of numbers.

"He didn't tell you anything?" Sakura said carefully as Sasuke rifled through their new evidence, there was a photo near the bottom of the stack of an unidentifiable saucer shaped disk. The man's heart started to race as his palms began to sweat.

"Not a thing." Ino set the steaming coffee mugs down with a thunk, and then dropped into her seat, tucking her legs underneath of her. "I just want my husband back; if you could do that for me I would be incredibly grateful."

XXX

"Haruno," Sasuke said evenly, his hands maneuvering the steering wheel of their rented silver car. "What do you make of all this?" The windows were cracked; the California air washed over their faces, and Sasuke couldn't help but be in a good mood. He had a positive feeling about the photograph Ino had given them, and something in his guts was telling him this might be the exact step they needed to take to get closer to the truth.

Sakura's knuckles were white; trying to hold onto all the paperwork in her lap, she had been looking over the random assortment contained in the paper work and she was worried one would get sucked out of the window.

"I think it's pretty obvious," she shrugged her shoulder as her nose and eyebrows scrunched together, reading over the seemingly illogical words. "I think Sai wanted to get out of the relationship and told her he was leaving for an agency call in Oregon."

"You believe that's all there is to this?"

"You think there's something more?" Sakura's brow rose and she shuffled the papers back together. "Look at the evidence, Uchiha, they were probably just screwing around when Ms. Yamanaka got pregnant, he waited until after the birth of their child to propose to her, which isn't even normal anymore. And after only a few months, he bailed. It's a classic story of an unwanted child in a relationship that doesn't normally work. What more do you want from this case?"

"Don't you think that those papers she gave us are even slightly suspicious?"

The woman sighed. "Yes, they're interesting to say the least, and I imagine we're going to have a tough time out here without the support of the bureau headquarters to decipher it, but maybe it's not meant to be deciphered. Besides," Sakura looked out the window at the ocean of greenery they passed as they drove out of the Village Hidden in the Leaves. "Not everything we stumble upon can be aliens and ghost stories Sasuke. Some of them have to be simple human nature."

The man shrugged and flicked on his turning signal. "Well we'll find out one way or another."

XXX

The next day the FBI agents found themselves in the local military base. They were sitting in front of a desk belonging to the military leader Danzo Shimura. He had bandages covering his right eye, and a deep scar along his chin, which made the hair on Sakura's arms stand on end.

"What exactly is the FBI doing here?" the man said, his voice deep and lilting in the quiet of his office. The walls were a deep brown and the only windows behind his desk were covered with thick curtains. A pathetic lamp cast mediocre light onto their faces, shadows played in their eyes and along their hairline.

"We're investigating a missing person," Sasuke said evenly, seemingly unfazed by the dimness and the leader's scar tissue. "We were told he was given orders to travel to the Village Hidden in the Sound, and we just wanted to check up and see what superior actually gave him those orders."

Danzo's mouth fell in a straight line and he stared at his hands, which were folded on top of the mass of papers on his desk. "What man is this?" He asked.

"His name is Sai, his fiancé Ino Yamanaka filed the report in the next town and it eventually found its way to D.C." Sakura chimed it, ruffling through a sheaf of papers and pulling one out. "This is a picture of him," she handed it over to the leader and he glanced at it before handing it back.

"I've never seen him around here before."

Sakura's mouth warped into a frown. "Why don't you take a little longer to check," her jaw ground slightly. "It's pretty dark in here; the lighting might be throwing your eye sight off." She continued to hold the image out but the man didn't take it. Sakura frowned and folded the papers back into her trench coat pocket.

"I don't know who that is."

Sakura inhaled and Sasuke tried. "What can you tell us about a man named Asuma?"

Danzo's face was inanimate, blank except for the faint look of anger burning out of his single eye. "The only thing I can tell you about a man named Asuma is that he, too, was never here."

"Are you sure that you're the highest in command here?" the words slipped from Sasuke's mouth before he had time to catch them. "It seems like you're pretty out of the loop to assume you're in charge."

The man's face reddened and he stood up from his desk, punching a button on a black device on his desk. "It's been a real pleasure," he spit at them and within seconds the heavy doors to the room were opened and light flooded in, momentarily blinding Sasuke and Sakura. "Please escort these people out, they're done here."

After their eyes adjusted they could see a woman standing there with eyes the color of the sunset and chocolate brown hair tied into a tight bun at the base of her neck. "Come this way please," she said softly, holding the door open for them as the two FBI agents walked out of the room.

The door closed with a dull thud and a click of the knob. The woman's short heels _tap tap tapped _as she led her small flock away from Danzo's office. It was a straight shot for what seemed like hours, but eventually she took a sharp right and led them to an elevator.

Sakura's brows knitted together and she shook her head. "I don't think we took an elevator to get here, isn't the exit-"

"He's hiding it." The woman said under her breath, swiping an I.D. badge into a reader and the elevator came rumbling to their floor. "He's lying to you and I want you to know the truth. Sai wasn't the only one who has gone missing." There were tears in her sunset eyes and she stared at Sakura, then at Sasuke. "I want you to find out what's happened to them, please."

The elevator doors opened with a ding and she nodded into the open space. "Go to the basement and take the stairs to go another floor down. The information you need should be there."

Sasuke laid a hand on the small of Sakura's back and gently pushed her into the waiting elevator. "Wait," Sakura turned, her coat brushing against Sasuke's pant leg and the wall of the small box. "What's your name?"

The woman smiled as the door closed. "Kurenai," came through the slit of metal before her form was hidden from view and Sasuke jabbed the B button on the direction panel.

There was no music or background noise in the elevator, only the ominous grinding of the cable as the metal box descended three floors to the basement. It rattled and clacked, Sakura was worried it would stop on another floor and they would have to fake confusion, but it didn't. Their lift took them directly to the basement, and when the doors opened, nothing but a wall of darkness met them.

Sakura heard a sigh, and still felt Sasuke's hand on her back –and she had never been so thankful for the slight contact in her life. "I guess we exit the lift now, huh?" he directed her out of the box with a nudge, and she felt him grab around in his trench coat for his flashlight. She rifled through her own pockets, ignoring the crumple of her papers and the weight of her I.D. badge, and grabbed the flashlight she had.

When the beams from the handheld lights came on both man and woman gasped. Around them were tanks filled with green liquid and gigantic metalloid devices hooked up to them. Sasuke dropped his hand from Sakura's waist and walked closer to the tanks, flashlight pointed into the liquid as Sakura stepped the opposite direction, sweeping her beam at the farthest point she could find. They were surrounded by the tanks, and her pale beam couldn't detect a wall ahead or beside them.

Their only point of origin came from the elevator they exited from.

"What do you think these are for?" Sasuke murmured, leaning over to finger the wires connecting the green filled glass to the humming devices. His brows furrowed as he inspected the hunks of metal. There was a multitude of buttons on them, all unlabeled but different colors. A screen in the middle was blank, but he assumed it was for some sort of vital signs.

"I have no idea," Sakura replied, jumping at the sound of the elevator leaving and rumbling back to another floor. The hairs on her arms were still standing on end. She swallowed and willed her heart to stop racing. "I think we should move on, just in case that's someone trying to come down here. Besides," She looked at her partner and hoped he wouldn't notice she was afraid. "That woman said we needed to go another floor down, I can't see the walls from here, so I think we have a good hike ahead of us."

Sasuke nodded, and without further consultation, they both started walking into the darkness.

The stair case was located in the far right corner of the floor, slightly hidden behind more tanks and more metal devices. They exchanged look, and after inspecting the area around the door, Sakura opened it and took timid steps, and walked down the stairs.

The soft shuffling sound of Sasuke's feet were punctuated by the click clack of Sakura's no-nonsense heels. The stairs would go down and then turn in on themselves, twisting so that they would go deeper down instead of steadily declining at a consistent angle into the ground. The air became thick, a scent of mildew sat heavy in their nostrils, and Sakura had to wipe at her nose. It was progressively warmer too, as if they were taking a staircase directly to the rainforest floor. Sweat beaded on Sasuke's brow, and he wished he didn't have his big jacket packing heat closer.

Finally, they came to the end of the staircase. An unassuming door met them, pale grey with a shiny silver handle, and Sakura reached out to take it. Sasuke pulled his gun out, and after nodding, Sakura pushed the door open and Sasuke burst into the space.

The same tanks that sat in the basement sat here on the first sublevel. Except these had a blue sheen to the water, and there were bodies actually suspended there.

Sakura inhaled, a nauseous feeling bloomed in the pit of her stomach, and she took a few steps forward to rid herself of the sensation. She drew her own gun from its holster and walked down the path between the tanks.

Sasuke stepped closer to them, pressing his curious face up to the glass. Condensation clung to the front of the glass, droplets that reflected a thousand exact images of the body inside. He wiped the excess water away, ignored the heat radiating around him, and squinted his eyes to try and make out the person in the tank.

"Haruno, look at this."

Sakura wandered closer to Sasuke, gun pointed at the ground, and leaned in to stare through his makeshift porthole.

A gasp ripped through her lungs and her delicate jaw hung open at the hinges. "But, that's… that's…" she jammed her gun back into its holster and pulled out her sheaf of papers in a frenzy, a few flew unceremoniously onto the floor without a sound. "Uchiha, that's…"

She held out the photograph of Ino Yamanaka's fiancé Sai, Sakura's pupils were larger than the moon in the darkness and Sasuke could feel her fear.

"That's him." Sasuke said lamely, holding his flashlight beam on the photo and then flashing it at the being suspended in the tank.

The black hair was weightless, spread around Sai's head like a crown, his eyes were closed but Sakura knew if they were open they would be black as coal. The curve of his jawline, the planes of his cheeks, even the crescent shaped birthmark Ino spoke of could be seen on the being's clavicle. They were identical, down to the length of his fingernails.

Sakura's heart was throbbing against her ribs, and she couldn't quite catch her breath in the humid environment. She was scared to look into any of the other tanks, but Sasuke dove right in. He started sprinting down the line, taking a few seconds to wipe condensation from the glass, and then peering in.

"They're all the same," his voice was low but it sounded like a scream in the suffocating silence. The beam of his flashlight got smaller and thinner as he ran along the tanks. "It's all him, they're all the same."

There was a screech as he bumped into a tank and disturbed it, and silence followed.

"Uchiha?" Sakura called after him, pushing pink hair behind her ear. Her chest felt too big and she vaguely wondered if she was going to pass out. "Uchiha what's going on?"

When her partner didn't reply, she snatched the fallen papers from the floor and stuffed them into her trench pockets again. With a final glance at the first Sai's tank, she pulled her gun and ran after her partner.

Her feet clicked on the seeming linoleum floors, but another set of footsteps followed, and Sakura swallowed as much fear as she could. As she plodded closer her shoulders hunched together, preparing for she wasn't sure what, but within seconds, she had to hold back a whimper.

Sasuke stood not ten feet ahead of her, his gun held out and pointing at a milk white man who had his long hands held in the air. Sakura was close enough now she could hear them, and the pale man's voice set her skin into gooseflesh.

"Is that you Danzo?" the voice was silky and threaded, a snake slithering through the air into their eardrums. "Danzo you know I do not like the light."

"My name isn't Danzo," Sasuke said sternly, voice too deep in comparison to the slyness of the other. "My name is Sasuke Uchiha; I'm an FBI agent investigating the disappearance of a man named Sai. Tell me why you have hundreds of tanks filled with a body that looks just like his."

"Sasuke Uchiha," the man's tongue got stuck on the S and held it out long enough for Sakura to shudder; "How wonderful, I never get visitors down here." The pale man took a step closer but Sasuke followed suit and took one back.

"Don't come closer. Tell me who you are and what you're doing here."

"What I'm doing here." The smile that spread across the man's face consumed him, and all that seemed to be there were rose colors lips twisted together in a grimace of a grin. "I'm the scientist behind all of this. My name is Orochimaru."

"Why do you have Sai in this green liquid?" Sakura chimed in, keeping distance enough to provide backup but not close enough for direct contact.

"Oh Sasuke, you have a she with you, how wonderful. I have two visitors today." Orochimaru folded his arms across his chest. "Those bodies you see are not Sai. Sai is one in hundreds. He was only woken for one job, and one job completed, he is now asleep again."

"One job?"

"You two must know nothing of the truth." The man's eyes were slits and he watched them evenly, apparently unmoved by the intruders. "Sai is not human, and neither his offspring. Konoha is one of many villages hidden within the states with one singular purpose, the testing of alien offspring."

"Alien offspring?" Sasuke repeated, gun faltering for a moment, now pointed at the ground instead of the man ahead of him. "What do you mean by that?"

"They are genomed to look like people, but they are not." It didn't take an entire heartbeat for Orochimaru to cross the short gap between himself and Sasuke. A flash of silver shone from his hands and a knife was pressed against Sasuke's throat. "But now, you are here in my dungeon, and you will die here."

A shot rang pure and Orochimaru's head bled a bubbling green. His body went limp, but not before slicing into Sasuke's tender flesh. The agent groaned, pulled to the ground by Orochimaru's dead weight, and coughed.

Something acrid spread through the air, Sakura lifted her lapel to cover her mouth and watched in horror as Sasuke, bleeding, began to thrash and cough harder, the veins in his throat protruding as blood leaked out.

"Stop breathing it in," Sakura rushed closer, the lapel only filtered some of the acrid gas from her mouth. She stuffed her gun into the holster, without stopping to think why she pulled an I.D. badge from Orochimaru's collar, and then hoisted Sasuke from the ground, dragging him away from the body of the scientist.

Her hands worked quickly, tearing a piece of fabric from her blouse and securing it around the cut in Sasuke's neck, then ripping another piece to cover his mouth and nose. His eyes had reacted to the acrid gas as well, puffing and weeping; the skin around his mouth was starting to blister into angry red welts.

Green-ish plasma continued to leak from Orochimaru's forehead, and a clatter sounded from the unassuming door they had entered through.

Sakura heaved Sasuke closer, he fidgeted, fingers twitching, and Sakura hissed at him. "Stop moving," she struggled to drag his limp weight away from the noise filtering in from the doorway. "Don't speak or anything," she ground her jaw and fought for a better grip around his torso, and drug him around the dead body as quickly as she could.

The click clacking of her shoes was drowned out by the hoard of military men and women who swarmed into the laboratory of tanks. She cursed silently and prayed for some way to escape. There were voices and shuffled steps, and orders being barked out.

Sakura was back stepping so quickly and blindly she didn't realize equipment was behind her, and it tripped her up. She fell, Sasuke plummeting with a clunk onto the floor, and Sakura's ankle screamed out in pain. She grit her teeth together and when she went to grab Sasuke's shoulders again, she noticed a stray beam from a military person's flashlight illuminate a plaque at the top of the wall that seemed to appear beside her.

_Exit_ it read it clean white letters.

She examined it for a few rapid heartbeats, a quiet moan escaped Sasuke's gapping mouth. The exit door required a relevant I.D. and Sakura's hope sank. But a plastic card was clutched in her hand and she remembered grabbing Orochimaru's badge. She slid it through the device and there was a quick click and the metal frame swung open.

She heaved Sasuke again, he collided brutally with her chest, knocking the air from her lungs; but she drug him through the door; and within moments, they made their escape.

XXX

"The stars out here are so much brighter than in D.C." Sasuke commented, eyes blacker than the night examined the dark sky above them. "I imagine," he shifted in the driver's seat, pushing his lanky legs as far as they could manage in the cramped space. "That on the right night, you could see some pretty spectacular sights."

Sakura nodded halfheartedly, rolling the sleeves of a new blouse up to her elbows. She tilted her head to look at him, her pink hair framing the intense green eyes. "What exactly are we out here for Uchiha? We have a plane to catch in only an hour."

He grinned with the corner of his mouth before lifting his hand to bite at his nails. "We'll catch the flight, but honestly?" parts of his skin glowed green in the dashboard light, it made Sakura nauseous. "I'm hoping we'll get some help."

Sakura's spine immediately straightened with his words, eyes peeled and searching every deep shadow that was cast around the perimeter of their car. "Is our informant coming? X? Is X supposed to meet us here tonight?"

Sasuke's hand darted from his mouth and landed on hers, his digits curled around her knuckles and the contact was warm –slowing the woman's now rapid heartbeat. "No," Sasuke replied, "X isn't coming here." He gave her hand a slight squeeze, the minute gesture spoke volumes as they sat alone in the dark on the edges of an alien town, his appendage came to rest lamely in his lap. "No, I was hoping for help a little less likely."

"Are you saying we're out here at three a.m., an hour before our flight, waiting for an alien to come give us some clues about the information we learned?" The words were harsh, but there was no sting. Somehow, only after the handful of cases they worked on together, Sakura knew better than to doubt Sasuke's instincts.

But she still couldn't believe.

"I thought that maybe they would show up. That maybe someone would come and explain what the hell happened here." Sasuke stared down uselessly at the steering wheel. "I still think we should have told that woman her son is an alien hybrid."

"How could we?" Sakura responded with a soft voice, looking out her own window and ignoring the searing pain coming from her ankle. They had stopped at a hospital out of town, hoping to not garner any attention from the Hidden Village's people. They gave Sasuke an antiseptic for his skin reaction and they set Sakura's food in a splint like contraption, only a sprain they said.

"By the time we'd get a big enough team they'll have moved every sliver of evidence in the basement of that facility." She continued, rubbing at her temples. She wished she had remembered to pack Tylenol, a headache and a sprained ankle felt like it would end her. "The scientist is dead, the newspaper said they were holding a funeral for that Kurenai woman, they got to her before we even realized what we were in to." She sighed heavily, setting her palm delicately on his shoulder. "It's over Sasuke, whatever truth we discovered yesterday is gone."

The man frowned and chewed on the inside of his cheek. "I was just hoping for something, you know? We do so much chasing, and nothing ever comes from it."

She patted him and let her own appendage fall to her lap. "We still have the papers Sasuke, maybe when we get back to D.C. we'll be able to decode them."

His head shook, black hair coming to fall in his eyes. "I think you were right about those papers in the beginning Sakura, I don't think they're meant to be decoded."

The woman didn't say anything, just closed her eyes and sunk deeper into her seat. "I'm sorry, for whatever it's worth." She mumbled quietly; sleep hanging at the edges of her consciousness. Her head lolled to the side, searching for a comfortable position against the hard plastic of the car walls.

"Here," Sasuke said, turning and digging in the backseat of their rented car. "I got this for you before we even left D.C." He pulled out the raccoon mascot from the coffee shop they met in what seemed like weeks ago. "Maybe it will help you sleep."

Sakura smiled, looking at the stuffed creature, narrowing her eyes she read the little shirt it had on and snorted. "Did you know his name is Spooky?"

Sasuke's mouth formed a half grin and he looked out the window. "I figured it would make you laugh."

She ran her fingers over the raccoon's faux fur and smiled. "Thank you Uchiha." She resituated in her seat, the stuffed animal sitting gently in her arms; and she fell asleep.


End file.
